Dark Summer in Bordeaux by Allan Massie Page A

Rimbaud, but more often English poets. Would Schussmann do that too? He had just put on his bathing-trunks when Aramis came into the changing-room.
    ‘Are we the first?’ he said.
    ‘I don’t know. The others may be already by the pool. I’ll wait for you.’
    Aramis chattered as he changed, then said, as if shyly, his eyes averted from Léon, ‘I thought what you wrote was brilliant.’
    ‘It was mostly Alain’s work.’
    ‘I’m sure it wasn’t all his, that you had a hand in it. Anyway, you mean, d’Artagnan’s.’
    They both found themselves giggling. Aramis put his arm round Léon’s shoulder.
    ‘I’m sure we’re going to be great friends,’ he said. ‘But I wish I could remember where it was I saw you before.’
    ‘In the bank perhaps,’ Léon said. ‘I used to be a counter-clerk.’
    ‘Not possible. I’ve never been in a bank in my life.’
    Again they both laughed and with Aramis’ arm still round his shoulder went through to the pool.
    Aramis said, ‘Well, we are the first. Do you want to swim? It looks more natural if we do.’
    Léon blushed, ‘I can’t actually. I’ve never learned.’
    ‘I’ll teach you. It’s not difficult. Really, it’ll be a pleasure. Some day you may have to swim for your life and think how embarrassing it will be if you can’t. Come on.’
    They entered the pool at the shallow end where the water came just up to their waist. It was colder than Léon expected. Aramis put his arm on Léon’s middle and told him to kick his legs up. Then he cupped his other hand under Léon’s chin and said, ‘Now arms and legs like a frog.’ To his surprise Léon found himself buoyant. He made a few strokes and with Aramis supporting him, felt the tension leaving him and was almost swimming. Then he looked up and saw Alain standing on the poolside. Alain dived in, swam a couple of lengths and stopped beside them.
    ‘All right?’
    They clambered out. Porthos was standing watching them. He was still fully dressed.
    ‘I hate swimming,’ he said, ‘except in the sea. Before the war we always went to Biarritz for the holidays every summer. I suppose that’s off this year too.’
    He talked for some time about Biarritz and what a bore it was that they had been confined to the city last year, and how it looked like being no better this one.
    ‘So that’s how it is,’ Aramis said. ‘We’re accustomed to going to the Côte d’Azur, to Nice where my grandparents live. Now we can’t even cross the demarcation line to the Unoccupied Zone. What about you, Athos?’
    Alain intervened, sparing Léon the embarrassment of admitting that he had never gone away on holiday because his father was dead and his mother couldn’t afford it.
    ‘This is not what we’re here to talk about,’ he said, and led them to the little gallery above the pool. They spread towels and lay down.
    ‘So . . . ’ Alain said, ‘how did we do?’
    All the posters had been distributed.
    Aramis said, ‘I’ve got a confession though. I was pinning one to a tree in the public garden and thought I was alone till an old lady who had been asleep on a bench came up and stood by my shoulder. I don’t mind admitting I was scared stiff in case she called a policeman – not that there was one about but I wasn’t thinking straight – until she clapped me on the back and said, “Bravo, young man, but you really must be more careful. Vive la France all the same!”’
    Alain told them about Léon’s plan to scatter copies of the Cross of Lorraine around the city.
    ‘I like that,’ Aramis said, ‘that’s brilliant.’
    Porthos said, ‘My father says de Gaulle’s a madman, crazy, vain and conceited. He was in a prison camp with him in the last war, and says he wouldn’t trust him an inch.’
    ‘Well, my father thinks the Marshal the saviour of France,’ Aramis said. ‘We just have to accept that we can’t trust our fathers’ generation. After all, it’s they who have got us into this